


Little Man Being Erased

by redrichards



Series: Snakes and Ladders [1]
Category: Marvel (Comics), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Long Distance Relationship, M/M, References to Suicide, References to attempted suicide, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-10-27
Updated: 2012-11-01
Packaged: 2017-11-17 04:10:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/547467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redrichards/pseuds/redrichards
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bruce Banner, a 20 year-old university student on his was to recovery from self-harm and suicide attempts, accidentally meets a scrawny archer following the same path.  The two end up bonding over various psych meetings until their friendship evolves into something more.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [and cally](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=and+cally).



> **WARNING: MENTIONS OF SUICIDE/ATTEMPTED SUICIDE** (abandoned)

_Your message box is empty._

  
It was a Tuesday, Bruce hated Tuesdays. Their existence was something that must’ve been spawned just to torture. Tuesday. Middle of the week, nothing was accomplished and yet you were still being worked to the bone, starving for sleep.

  
It was ridiculous, how teachers could fawn over days like these- although there were only a few in his past that had done so. “So many possibilities~!” So many reminders that you’ve yet to accomplish anything worth-while in your life other than wallow in your own misery. Tuesdays, honestly.

  
This one, at least, had hope, maybe something to break the lifelong streak of terrible Tuesdays. Had. That tiny chance of liberation was dying as the clock ticked on. If he was going to get a message, it would’ve arrived thirty minutes ago, not now as he desperately clicked his inbox, breathing paranoia.

  
Refresh.

  
 _Your message box is empty._

  
God dammit.

  
The site was a front, probably, and he would have to completely clean out his hard drive for trusting it. No messages, not even anything spam, other than the verification letter holding a promise. More faulty promises. That was the usual deal wasn’t it? High hopes and crushing reality.

  
I mean, if it was real, there were probably hundreds of other people. He was just an extra, unnecessary. Why was he worried? He shouldn’t be worried. The fact that he wasn’t chosen was a sign that he had less to worry about- not more. But still, what if.

  
Refresh.

  
 _Your message box is e-_

  
“I know it is. Stop telling me.” Bruce groaned, pressing his forehead into his palms, his elbows attempting to balance themselves on the edge of the rickety table. His glasses were situated above the spacebar of the keyboard, still a bit steamy from re-acclimatizing to the temperature of his lab.

  
Somehow he had convinced himself that logging in to check his email before he finished up recording the data on his latest experiment was a good idea, and not something that would’ve wasted the last twenty minutes with desperate repetition. He’d taken longer than usual during lunch, getting distracted as one of the students had brashly and unapologetically almost knocked him over on his way to his table, causing him to spill the contents of his tray all down his front. The delays to checking his email had led him to believe that maybe he had missed it and now ridiculous scenarios were playing out in his head. What if the skinny, black-haired kid was a hacker from some organization sent to steal his personal information and had deleted the email while Bruce ran back to his dorm room to change into something not spoiled by tea and mashed potatoes. Impossible, but still-

  
Refresh.

  
 _Your message box is empty._

  
“What in God’s name are you doing, Bruce?” Bruce jerked backwards, his nose having been inches away from contacting the last ‘y’ of the fragment. “Is this some weird porn fetish? Pressing your face up against the screen like you would boobs?”

  
“Tony, stop-”

  
“No, let me see,“ Tony flippantly swatted his arm out of the way, squinting at the dark black letters lined up so perfectly across the screen. “These aren’t boobs.”

  
“Obviously not.” Bruce caught the bridge of his nose in between his thumb and forefinger and let the tips slide against the skin, smoothing his muscles as his eyes readjusted to the darker palette of the lab. Tony was leaning to his right, his neck swiveled to give Bruce a humoring expression. “Why are you here? I thought you and Rhodey were going to see Pepper up in New York?”

  
“We haven’t left yet. Just wanted to stop by and see how my favorite scientist was doing!” Tony combed his fingers through Bruce’s curls, twisting his wrist so they flopped across his forehead and tickled his eyebrows. “We’re going to be gone for a while. Are you sure you’re going to be alright all by yourself?” It was a weak attempt at best to hide his deeper concerns under his falsetto tone and flamboyant smile.

  
“I’ll be fine. I’m usually the one who cooks anyways.” Bruce reminded him and Tony chuckled.

  
“Well, Pep’ll kill me if anything happens to you again.”

  
“I promise. I’ll be fine.”

  
“You better!” Tony shouted, as he slipped through the doorway, waving a goodbye Bruce silently returned.

  
Refresh.

  
 _Your message box is empty._

  
~

  
The oriental supermarket around the corner was closed for a religious holiday, leaving Bruce to bake with the assorted spices he could scavenge from the corners of the cabinets. Nothing fancy, just a small bowl of rice mixed with vegetable stubs. The T.V. was dim and quiet and the voices of the characters could barely be heard over the low rumble of the air conditioner.

  
Five more days like this.

  
Tony, more formally known as Anthony Stark, was the prodigy son of Howard Stark, who’s enterprises had been passed down to Tony earlier this year after the death of the inventor. This, of course, forced Tony to travel off on business trips, primarily to New York, to have meetings with his vice-president Pepper Potts, whose first name Tony refused to share with Bruce, and Howard Stark’s friend and Tony’s godfather Obadiah Stane. Tony always complained for days before each one, which marked the miracle that was his and Rhodey’s friendship, often clinging onto Bruce and begging to stay, although he always left and Bruce was forced to lay waste in ominous silence until the weekend. Last time Tony and Rhodey had come home to messages from the local hospital with the news of Bruce’s recent placement in their beds. This time would be different.

  
After multiple excursions to internet help and therapy sites, Bruce found the one most interesting. It was an experiment of sorts that planned to pair up suicidal young adults in hopes of finding a common ground for comfort. Of course this idea could go disastrously wrong, but the lure of friendship was something he couldn't just let go of.

  
So he signed up, his personal information now pressed into a complete stranger’s hands, in return receiving a promise of his ‘partner’ in a few days time. On Tuesday around two in the afternoon.

  
It was now almost ten at night and Bruce could feel those hopeless shadows returning to swallow him again.

  
When they had first met, being the obnoxious man he is, Tony had forced on him a high tech Stark industries phone that looked so fragile it was terrifying, but it worked like something only Stark industries could create. The home button gleaned in the dim evening light as Bruce tapped away, pulling up the internet and logging in, desperately clinging onto this last strand of hope.

  
 _You have one new message._

  
\-- _We’re sorry for our recent delays in membership notifications, trafficking shut down the site for a couple of days, but we’ve…_

  
Usual web incompetence. A 50 year-old therapist was probably running this site with the help of their job-less, teenage son who’d much rather use the internet for porn than for anti-suicide campaigns.

  
\-- _…We are pleased to inform you that our systems have matched you up with Clint Barton. His donated contact information can be found below. First sessions will be held…_

  
A tiny scrawl of an email address aligned to look more like code with a mixed assortment of letters and numbers sat at the bottom of the page. Would it seem desperate if he messaged him right away? What would he even say? “Hey I’m Bruce Banner and I’m just as close to killing myself as you are”? He doubted Barton’d enjoy dark humor, although he is on a depression therapy web-site. He could always be some obnoxious teen who- Oh god, was he really even dignifying that as a possibility?

  
“It’s just that simple!” The sudden boom of the infomercial snapped Bruce back into reality, his head already full of panicked thoughts of frustration with his lack of conversational skills. His dinner was still in his lap, the fork having fallen onto the cushions of the couch during his momentary lapse of interest.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bruce Banner, 21. Emotionally repressed, known to erupt when provoked. Diagnosed with: Anxiety, High Blood Pressure, Depression. Born in Dayton, Ohio; moved to New York city seven months ago to begin college with financial aid from Stark Enterprises. Single, last relationship 13 months ago. Last incident: 56 days ago.

Bruce's songbird rang in the morning, a long warbling note that broke in intervals. The alarm ran on a clock, one which had the propensity to mistake one second for two and speed forward three minutes every few days. It was now stepping seven minutes ahead of the rest of the world.

He hit snooze.

Seven minutes on a ten minute snooze. Now his day was going to sit three minutes behind.

From his enclave on the bed cocooned by blankets he could see the curtains tucked under stacks of textbooks, sun-bleached floral patterns smothered in equations and lost steppingstones to his degree. It was a haunting thought, remembering the last mirage that had phased him and the next handful of days that bore that same risk.

Carol was probably going to make an attempt to contact him. His phone was next to the clock and he almost stopped blinking in anticipation for that solitary buzz. She'd been desperate and distant in the set of recent weeks, caught between two tides developing storms. She'd been the one that recommended him his therapy site in the first place.

His phone nictitated into a blinding sun at his touch, having crawled across his pillows to reread his messages from last night.

\-- _We are pleased to inform you that our systems have matched you up with Clint Barton. His donated contact information can be found below. First sessions will be held on Wednesday, May 24th, at 7:30 P.M. EST. Please be ready for the moderator at least five minutes before._

Three minutes suddenly seemed much nicer than fourteen hours.

~

Carol did make attempt to contact him during breakfast. His phone buzzed one last time after a stream of unanswered texts.

“Quit spamming my phone.”

“Then quit avoiding me, you ass.” Her words sailed on top of a rush of what was undoubtedly supermarket clamor. A clear image of her sassy hands-on-hips pose disrupting her process of browsing frozen pizzas filled him mind. He couldn’t help but smirk. “It’s been a week, I’m coming over.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Then you’re coming over to my place.”

“I’m not doing anything.”

“Don’t use that tone on me, you little shit. We’re having pizza, Digorno good?”

“Whatever happened to delivery?”

“Oh, please tell me you saw the way the delivery guy would stare at my ass every time I answered the door and besides, ‘It’s not delivery; It’s Digorno!’” Identifiable crunch of the box landing on a mound of chip bags.

“You do have a nice ass-“ she huffed, “- I’m fine, okay? Don’t you have actual work to be doing?"

"The fact you explicitly told me you’re ‘fine’ is the exact reason I’m coming over.” Her shopping cart squeaked as Bruce moved to toss his napkin into the trash.

Carol had a right to be worried, he was too. But his sessions were starting today; that was a faithful enough reason to begin breathing again.

“Sessions this evening.”

“Ooo! Who with?”

“Clint Barton.”

She snorted. “Clit Farton.”

“I hate you.”

“Good luck with that.” A particularly loud voice boomed over her about free samples. “Tomorrow evening then? We’ll rewatch A New Hope while you tell me more about Mr. Clit.”

“I’m hanging up.”

“Aww, comeon, Han would love to hear about your partner in flatulen-“

“Goodbye.”

Her picture flashed onto the screen, leaving him alone again with his leftover toast crusts.

He pulled up the message again, his gaze lingering on the sore words as his stomach twisted. Notifications of Carol’s texts were washed away. He shouldn’t feel this alone.

~

The day concluded with the same canvas awash with color. His experiments were running smoothly, his hypothesis proven correctly. There was a congratulatory slap on the back as the numbers fell into place and distant conversations during lunch. There was color past his grey cloud, but it was too far to reach.

His anxiety had worn him down. The tablet was in his lap and minutes passed with a sort of sticky slowness. 7:25 and a bag of chips.

He couldn't help but wonder who Clint even was. What sort of tortures brought him to desperately clutch to an internet help site, why was he paired up with Bruce- was it personality, emotional wounds, symptoms?

You have one new message.

\-- _Welcome to your first session. As you have already filled out a personal form, this next set of inquiries is just base information to introduce you to your partner. Fields can be left blank, however please answer as many as you can._

Bruce Banner, 21. Emotionally repressed, known to erupt when provoked. Diagnosed with: Anxiety, High Blood Pressure, Depression. Born in Dayton, Ohio; moved to New York city seven months ago to begin college with financial aid from Stark Enterprises. Single, last relationship 13 months ago. Last incident: 56 days ago.

He breathed, air flooding back into his lungs. He didn't remember holding his breath and yet with the words staring back at him now it was like he had finally surfaced from a life-long dive. Tendrils of currents brushed his neck as the air conditioner hummed back into its drive.

"We're the only two things alive in this room," he spoke, damming the last words in his throat.

The delicate send button flushed under his touch, and the page flickered out of site.

_Please._

7:55. His chips were stale after all. Lost in the back of the cabinet for so long. Carol usually plowed through everything and kept him in check on the date of freshness. She had a right to be worried, he was too.

Disregarding the electric pains rumbling through him, he pulled himself away from the tablet. His breaths were even with the air conditioner now as they exchanged oxygen and carbon dioxide. He hadn't noticed how the darkness choked the shadows.

_Help me._

The floor of the kitchen left the cold clutching to the soles of his feet. The pantry was so near to empty, and he pushed the bag back in.

He rinsed his hands, waiting for the notification of a response, of anything that acknowledged him.

_I'm so scared._

He waited, standing, watching the light flicker to be consumed by blackness, his palm pressed flat against the wall. His eyes began to refocus, folds of fabric and legs of tables resurfacing in his gaze. The shadows consumed him and one by one each breath leaved him.

He was still breathing, even as the tablet stayed silent. Even as he pulled himself into bed and kicked off his socks. As he pressed his nose into the gaps between the pillows and the air became stuffy and hot. And he kept breathing through the night. One after another. One at a time.

_I need salvation._


End file.
